What’s Wrong With Filipino People?

The following clip is from a recent doc called ‘Meeting David Wilson’ where a young black American traces his families roots and goes to meet the decendants of the slaveowners that enslaved his family. One of the repeating lines in the clip is the question “What’s wrong with black people?”

As a Filipino maybe you can relate to this. I know that I’ve muttered ‘what’s wrong with Filipinos?’ to myself.

Myk Miranda is leading a discussion with youth Thursday night (17 July), 6pm, at the centre to talk about our own cultural issues. If you’re interested in coming out (it’s free) or are curious about the event send us an email: info@kapisanancentre.com

Myk writes in the invite:

This is just a reminder that we’re holding our important roundtable discussion TOMORROW at 6pm at KPC.

Its gonna be the first time we’re doing this and we really hope to see you there. Its gonna be a really informal dialogue where we hope to simply and openly discuss issues that have to do with us. That includes any and everything involving being a Filipino in Toronto, and everyone can relate to that.

What are some the biggest challenges you’ve faced as a Filipino-Canadian living in Canada? (i.e. racism, poverty, under-representation, immigration, self-identity, health and human rights, security, etc).

Don’t worry, we don’t expect everyone to be super vocal, opinionated and/or to know-it-all, we just want your 2 cents.

[above: Myk–a first time balikbayan–looks out at an urban poor neighbourhood surrounding a slaughterhouse, next to a garbage dump. Manila, 2008.]

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To learn more about how we Filipinos are doing here in Toronto, check out an earlier post of mine: Filipinos in Canada